Fun fact: My team had only 12 stolen bases all year(out 0f 15att.) That might be a record for a team that wins a championship.

Anything below a 75% successful steal rate is not productive. Yet there are some teams here that run way too much. Outs are too precious to give away.

Good luck to everybody in the upcoming season. Maybe one day we might get a good draft.

I've found trying to get a team to 75% rate is just too high of a threshold. I think 66% is a perfectly acceptable rate. I've found that trying to end up with 75+ likely means you have to be overly conservative. That said, I take the 66% with a grain of salt because I find that aggressive base-running likely contributes to pickoffs (which are not included as CS, but are just as bad). I feel like the pickoffs that the game engine likes to throw in would probably easily drop a 66% success rate to closer to 60%, which I agree is getting to a rather poor level.

I haven't done the research into pickoffs. Do you think pickoffs are directly correlated to aggressiveness? Do you ever notice runners being picked off either by the pitcher or the catcher with your settings? If so, that would be an added benefit.

Good luck this season, as well. I think the top of the draft seems ok; might struggle to get a good player at #16.

75% is attainable. You just don't steal against catchers with an A arm! Of course you would be like my team with only 12 stolen bases this year and 23 the year before.

I have never had many A speed guys on my team. Only 6 on my roster right now. So I have to play conservative because I can not afford to give away any outs.

As far as pickoffs in relation to baserunners aggressiveness, I haven't noticed it. But because the way I treat baserunning, who knows. You may be on to something.

I have come to the conclusion, that the way to win is with role players. I am not talking about pitching. While having good starting pitchers is a must, if you don't have a good middle relief, set-up, and closer you are going to get beat once the starters come out. Just my opinion. As far as hitting, while it is nice to have A/A's up and down your lineup, it is just so hard with the qualities of these drafts.

The 75% number is definitely statistically sound. I remember reading Bill James' research into it in the 1980s. I believe he was trying to figure out if the Cardinals were adding or subtracting runs in those days with all the stealing they did, and he hit on 75% as the break even of expected future runs in an inning by moving up a base vs. what the lost out cost you.

Earl Weaver's book on baseball managing came out a decade earlier, and he argued the same point without the stats to back it up. He used to say they only give you 27 outs, and he was darned sure not giving them away with caught stealing or sacrifice bunts. Worked pretty well for him, I must say.

I don't tweak my SB settings here, but I thought I had them set pretty well. Last season I stole 113 and had 30 CS. That's a solid 79%. Year before I was only at 66%, but it was 79% the year before that. Basically the same players, just a little less lucky that one season. Overall, I guess I'm on target.

Certainly, this will keep you from making bad bets (or even bets for that matter). That said, you may as well avoid running completely. Your 12 steals come against the occasional backup catcher with a B- arm or a bench-player playing out of position (which will drop even a "100" Arm down to useless both in likely performance and opposing runners' valuation). To me, this is a gambler's fallacy: Why doesn't everybody just gamble like me? I almost always win because when I gamble I only do so when the odds are obviously in my favor. This is great in theory, but not so great in practice. Here's a hypothetical*: I give you and another fella $1000 to gamble with for a year at a game that offers a variety of differing odds for and against the player.

1) You decide to only play games that you have a 75% of winning which come along once a month. You end up winning 9 times ($100 max), and end up with $1600. Not bad. You increased your investor's investment by 60%.
2) The other guy decides to be careful as well, but realizes that being so conservative might be overly cautious from a mere opportunity standpoint. He still makes the 90% bets you do and ends up with +$600 from those bets. He also decides to make the 66% bet (which is weekly). This results in 52 more bets of $100. He wins 34 times and loses 18. He ends up making +$1600 from the 66% bets. This would be a 220% increase on investment.

*I realize this is both reductive and unrealistic. Not meant to suggest there is an ideal. Just that there are various schools of thought on the subject.

I have never had many A speed guys on my team. Only 6 on my roster right now. So I have to play conservative because I can not afford to give away any outs.

That's probably smart. What if you had all 8 starters at 100 speed? Would you still be feel 75% success rate was as important? If I had to choose between 12 SB & 4 CS versus 300 SB & 150 CS, I would likely reluctantly take the 300 steals. Afterwards, of course, I would realize that A+ speed is just not as beneficial as someone might assume for being uber-successful in the base stealing game.

As far as pickoffs in relation to baserunners aggressiveness, I haven't noticed it. But because the way I treat baserunning, who knows. You may be on to something.

It happens. Believe me, it happens. It frustrates the heck out of me. If pickoff rates are directly influenced by stealing aggressiveness, it serves to be yet another deterrent to racking up Stolen Bases.

I have come to the conclusion, that the way to win is with role players. I am not talking about pitching. While having good starting pitchers is a must, if you don't have a good middle relief, set-up, and closer you are going to get beat once the starters come out. Just my opinion. As far as hitting, while it is nice to have A/A's up and down your lineup, it is just so hard with the qualities of these drafts.

As much as I don't want to argue with the winner of the past 2 championships in the MML, doesn't the runner-up's pitching staff performance lead you to question your "pitching & defense" theory just a little bit? I mean, sure, if both guys show up to a gunfight with knives, one guy with a knife will still win.

Overall, I don't mean to offend anybody by arguing against the idea that 75%+ is some kind of gold-standard. I would prefer if we left the discussion to only SimDynasty and leave the real-world stealing debate to Bill James. I think we can all agree that real-world baseball is thousands of times more complex in all it's complexities and variables than the game SimDynasty provides. Finally, I'll point out that the MML all-time leader in Stolen Bases finished his career with a *gasp* 72% success rate. His best season was 83% successful, while having full seasons while at full grades with success rates of 66% (@34) and 71% twice (@33 and @28). To me, that either means that: a) stealing bases is so inefficient that it should be avoided 99% of the time or b) a better inflection point than 75% is necessary.